Introduction

The ultimate purpose of Christianity is ‘parousia’ and the resulting advent of the ‘Kingdom of God.’ As the eschatological telos, the Kingdom of God is the foundation of Christian hope and the realistic driving force in Christian history. However, the delay of the fulfillment of this promise has brought about internal tension within the Church. Christianity’s historicity is faced with serious challenges because of the delay of the Second Coming and the Kingdom of God, and Christian eschatology is faced with a theological dilemma.

In the past two thousand years of Christian history, there have been various different theological endeavors to solve this eschatological dilemma caused by the delay of the Second Coming. Bultmann emphasizes that Paul and John, to solve this problem, highlighted the eschatological existentiality of the present in “thinking that the presence of Christ is already with the eschatological existence of the believer,” and have neutralized or historicized Christian eschatological ideas by emphasizing the anticipation for the future.¹ After Pauline theology, theological attempts to solve the theological dilemma of the delay of the Second Coming with the anticipation for the millennial kingdom have been developed by the Church Fathers. Based on the understanding that the millennial kingdom has begun simultaneously with Christ’s establishment of the Church, Augustinus sought to interpret that the promise of the Second Coming has not been delayed.² Strengthened by his theological understanding, medieval Catholics displayed theological anticipation of the Church as the ‘City of God’ and argued the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God.³ Based on the post-millennial Adventism, Joachim sought to solve the eschatological dilemma of the delay of the Second Coming with the anticipation for the coming age of the Holy Spirit,⁴ and the Protestant Reformers sought to solve the dilemma with the anticipation for the “completion” of spreading the Gospel (Matt. 24:14) based on “sola scriptura.”⁵

These theological efforts continued to the thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. By the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment theologians sought to solve the spiritual dilemma following the delay of the Second Coming through Millennial anticipation driven by optimistic view of history. Despite these theological efforts and hopes for the millennial kingdom, these types of eschatology lost their theoretical power when the coming of the Kingdom of God wasn’t fulfilled. In addition, the anticipation for the promise of the Second Coming was no longer a driving force of Christian hope, but became the historical burden for Christian spirituality and the eschatological task of modern theology.

How, then, has modern theologians understood Christian eschatology and sought to solve the theological task related to the delay of the Second Coming? The purpose of this study is to analyse the eschatological understanding of the 18th to the 19th century theologians based on this question, and historically evaluate their theological understanding. In addition, this paper seeks to explain the historical understanding of Christian eschatology in terms of Adventism, as a theoretical alternative that can overcome the theological limitations of the eschatological understanding pursued by modern theologians. In particular, its potential for historical understanding as a synthesis of Christian eschatology is presented, based on the fact that modern theology’s eschatological understanding is developing historical-dialectically.

Optimistic Understanding of Christian Eschatology – Thesis

Nineteenth century Christian theology, from which modern theology started, had a very optimistic understanding of eschatology. Although Protestantism at this time was faced with some significant challenges, it expanded worldwide with the most far-reaching influence in history.⁶ Historically, the change of social ideology in the nineteenth century was a great challenge to Protestantism. The expansion of the spirit of Enlightenment that emphasized human reason and autonomy, empirical skepticism that stemmed from philosophy, positivism, methodology and historical criticism, changes in the function and role of society as a result of the French Revolution, changes in cosmological worldview as represented by Darwin’s theory of evolution, existentialistic nihilism, and Marx’s materialistic communism all posed a direct challenge to the Christian ideology, and became sociological factors that weakened Protestant theology.

In spite of these serious challenges, Protestantism achieved a global growth in the nineteenth century through the geological expansion of the “neocolonial” period,⁷ in addition to active evangelical pursuits. In the background of this missional growth were the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century and the Great Revivals of the nineteenth century in the US. Many different missions’ societies for world missions were established under the influence of these revival movements, and the dedicated activities of such organizations became the driving force that expanded Protestantism despite the social challenges at the time. As a result, the “greatest expansion of Christianity that cannot be found in human history” was achieved, as described by K. S. Latourette.⁸

This remarkable external expansion allowed for a new understanding and changes regarding the coming of the “Kingdom of God.” Liberalistic theologians of the nineteenth century sought to solve the dilemma of Christian eschatology by accepting the expansion of Protestantism as the expansion of the Kingdom of God. They believed that the Kingdom of God, which is the ultimate purpose of Christianity, was presented by the moral teachings of Christ, being realized in the ethical life of the believing Christian, and expanding according to the progressive ideology of the nineteenth century society. They came to the optimistic understanding that the Kingdom of God, the ultimate in Christian eschatology, was being realized in the church on earth.

This optimistic understanding of eschatology stems from the theological-philosophical interpretation of the Kingdom of God by nineteenth century liberal theologians. They were influenced by the philosophy of I. Kant and G. W. F. Hegel, who understand the Kingdom of God as a spiritual and ethical kingdom, rather than a historical and objective reality. F. Schleiermacher sought to understand the Kingdom of God from a divine reality and awareness of God within the human nature. In particular, he regarded the status of collective God-consciousness embodied in the Christian’s community life as an important standard for measuring the coming of the Kingdom of God. Along with this standard, he laid the theoretical foundation for the optimistic eschatology by accepting that the Kingdom of God is being progressively realized in his days through the development of the Christian community that shared and expanded God-consciousness.⁹

A. Ritschl, on the other hand, pointed out that Schleiermacher’s argument lacks ethical understanding, and emphasized that the Kingdom of God is realized ethically on earth through the moral practice of Christians. He understood the Kingdom of God as a moral organization of human beings that is established through actions inspired by the love of Jesus Christ.¹⁰ Ritschl extended this organization, not only to the church, but to the entire human society, and equated the ethical world pursued by the spirit of the Enlightenment at the time with the Kingdom of God. He shared the optimistic understanding of Christian eschatology by anticipating the so-called ‘culture-Protestant’ Kingdom of God.¹¹

Adolf von Harnack, a student of Ritschl, sought to prove that the essence of Christianity is in the Kingdom of God and its coming through doctrinal history, and to theologically explain what the Kingdom of God is in detail.¹² Harnack removed the external and historical meaning of the Kingdom of God by defining the Kingdom of God as “God’s holy reign that rules over the individual in their hearts (Gottescherrschaft),” and eliminated the anticipation and hope for the Second Coming.¹³ In the ideological background in which he sought to understand the Kingdom of God, not as a future hope, but as a moral kingdom embedded in the human heart, was the intention to solve the eschatological dilemma of Christianity. In his explanation of why this dilemma has occurred, Harnack argued that it is because Christianity lost the core of the truth because of the doctrinal shells that were put on through the historical development process. According to Harnack, the core of the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught was the internal reign of God, not an objective event in the future. Therefore, the coming of the Kingdom of God refers to the reign of God that is established in the human heart through the practice of ethical lessons Jesus taught, not a visible eschatological reality that is achieved through the Second Coming of Jesus. In this sense, Harnack had an optimistic understanding that Christianity no longer needs to fall into the futuristic eschatological dilemma, because the Kingdom of God has come to the heart of mankind.

The nineteenth century liberal theology, as represented by Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Harnack, internalized Christian eschatology by denying the objective reality of the Kingdom of God, that was a Christian dilemma, and emphasizing the spiritual and ethical Kingdom of God. Martin Werner criticized this theology, that liberal theologians had created a new theology that replaces the not-yet-fulfilled Kingdom of God with a mental and personal concept.¹⁴ Liberal theology was developed in the process of finding rational solutions to the problems faced by Christian theology during the Enlightenment. As a result, it deviated from the essence of Christian theology by utilizing overly secular philosophy and view of history. In particular, liberal theologians’ the optimistic understanding of Christian eschatology developed as a result of accepting the progressive historical understanding of the time. Liberal theology took the Enlightenment’s progressive view of history into the Christian view of history, and understood the nineteenth century as an age of optimism under the providence of the great God, and judged that the Kingdom of God had come into their history.

However, this optimistic understanding faced a serious challenge by the end of the nineteenth century. With the expansion of the negative dialectic understanding, that the culture of mankind was on the way of degeneracy, instead of advancing towards progress,¹⁵ the optimistic ideology of liberal theology, which developed alongside the progressivism of the Enlightenment, could no longer be accepted. Therefore, it was necessary to reinterpret the Christian eschatology and the understanding of the Kingdom of God that had been suggested by liberal theology. In the historical-dialectic structure of modern theology, the eschatological thesis of liberal theology has been replaced by the anti-thesis of neo-orthodox theology. According to this historical-dialectic structure, liberal theology’s optimistic understanding of eschatology is developed into the subjective understanding of neo-orthodox theology.

Subjective Understanding of Christian Eschatology – Anti-Thesis

Neo-orthodox theology appeared as an anti-thesis of liberal theology, criticizing the absence of ethical practice in liberal theology, and sought to rediscover the orthodox Christian doctrines that liberal theology abandoned.¹⁶ Eschatology, in particular, became an important subject of dialectic theology. Neo-orthodox theology (or existentialist theology) reconstructed eschatology as an anti-thesis of nineteenth century liberal theology that abandoned the transcendental nature of eschatology as a result of understanding the Kingdom of God as an inherent ethical kingdom. Thus, the Kingdom of God was understood as transcendent, not inherent, and Christian eschatology was understood as a subjective experience, not an objective realization. The neo-orthodox theologians’ subjective understanding of eschatology was actualized by Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann.

Karl Barth sought to understand the Kingdom of God based on apocalyptic theology that emphasized the transcendence of God. God is a being that transcends all human understanding, so his kingdom also is transcendent from human understanding. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is not a kingdom that is realized in history through secular progress.¹⁷ The Kingdom of God is not a moral, ethical kingdom that is established by human endeavor, nor is it an apocalyptic kingdom that destroys what is already existing and constructs a new world. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom that belongs to God, that is, it belongs to God’s realm from before eternity, transcending the history of the earth. This Kingdom, according to Barth, has been revealed to earth through Jesus Christ, who is the essence of revelation.¹⁸ That is, the Kingdom of God does not come from any historical continuity associated with this world, but comes nearer by its revelation only through Jesus Christ. Just as Christ is the revelation of God’s transcendence, the Kingdom of God is also revealed transcendently on this earth through him, not organically grown or constructed on this earth through certain conditions.

Then, how and when does the Kingdom of God come? Barth solves this problem by his understanding of his own history and time. Just as there is a qualitative difference between God and man, there is also an infinite qualitative difference between the eternity of God and the temporality of man. Therefore, the Kingdom of God that belongs in eternity cannot enter finite time. But through Jesus Christ, this became possible. Because the day of Jesus Christ that is eternal has entered into time, the Kingdom of God that belongs to him can also enter into time. Thus, a finite man is able to experience the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus. In the end, through Christ who brought eternal time and the Kingdom of God into the experience of this world, those who believe in him can experience the Kingdom of God in their own lives through faith. Because the moment Christ came is an eternal moment and the ultimate end, eschaton is not a future event but experienced in the moment as an eternal present.

For Barth, the Kingdom of God was revealed through the life of Jesus Christ, and the eschaton was realized from then on, and the ultimate eschatological event is realized at the moment when believers accept the eternal kingdom by faith.¹⁹ In the end, the moment of eternity meeting time was formed by the First Coming of Jesus Christ, and the transcendent Kingdom of God came into existence in that time. Therefore, the theological dilemma of the delay of the Kingdom of God in the history of two thousand years is meaningless, because “the end in the thorough sense” where “every moment is the eschaton” has come with the coming of Christ.²⁰ Barth’s eschatology is significant as the eternal now (nuncaeternum). The Second Coming of Jesus, for him, is a future event that hasn’t happened yet, only in the temporal concept of finite humans. From God’s perspective, it is only a final event that makes mankind aware of the Kingdom of God that was accomplished through the resurrection of Christ.²¹ The Kingdom of God is an eternal present that belongs to the transcendent subjectivity of God. There is no reason to explain this as a hope for the future, because it is already being realized in every moment of the lives of Christians through the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Barth argued that the Kingdom of God has no significant meaning in futuristic eschatology.

Barth sought to solve the theological dilemma of Christian eschatology resulted by the delay of the Second Coming, through understanding the Kingdom of God as the transcendental subjectivity of God. However, rather than to solve the problem of eschatology, this abolished the concept of futuristic eschatology and made the anticipation for the Second Coming of Christ to the present.²²

Like Karl Barth, Bultmann also subjectivated the Christian eschatology existentially. While Barth constructed a transcendent and subjective understanding of eschatology based on the dialectical difference between eternity of God and finitude of human, Bultmann presented a subjective understanding of eschatology based on existential interpretation of the Kingdom of God. In particular, Bultmann sought a dialectical study to solve the theological dilemma of the delay of the Second Coming by reconstructing the meaning of history and eschatology in his own way.²³

Bultmann saw that the ultimate problem of mankind was not a problem of God, but firstly an existential problem of man himself, and sought to solve all issues related to the existence of God within the existential subject of man. According to Bultmann, the reason that God is transcendent is because it cannot be objectively explained or understood by the scientific and rational epistemology of man, but nonetheless, a man’s knowledge of God is only possible by a personal response of faith to God’s self-revelation revealed in the Word.²⁴ Bultmann saw that as God exists subjectively within the existentiality of man, the Kingdom of God must also be understood from the existentiality of man.

Bultmann believed that the various apocalyptic images of eschatology in the New Testament, including the signs of the End Times, futuristic coming of Jehovah’s Day, the Second Coming of Christ, resurrection of the dead, and the suffering of judgment, originated from the apocalyptic literary tendencies of late Judaism.²⁵ He saw, in particular, that these apocalyptic literary depictions were expressed mythologically in the New Testament, and believed this needed demythologizing. According to this method of demythologization, Bultmann interpreted the Kingdom of God and eschatology existentially. That is, Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God was near, because the case of God’s salvation was already fulfilled through him and the eschaton had been realized as the salvation is present. However, this was not the end of the eschaton, because the history of Christianity continues for the fulfillment of this eschaton. Bultmann said that the Kingdom of God, fulfilled by Jesus, is “the power to completely determine the present although it is entirely futuristic,” that is, “the power that decides the present by forcing a resolution.”²⁶ In other worlds, Jesus declared the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, not to say that the Kingdom of God has come as an event that will eventually come in the future temporal flow, but to show that it is now a situation that requires man to make a resolution through their life.

As Jesus declared the Kingdom of God, those who hear his word are required to make a resolution, whether or not to accept the declared kingdom. Man gains meaning as a historical existence through decisions made in every moment, and the trigger for the decision of the moment is the future. The future is not a temporal concept of what is to come, but an existential concept that triggers resolutions at every moment. Therefore, the Kingdom of God refers to the trigger that allows an existential decision to be made, not an objective kingdom that will come in time. In the end, because the declaration of Jesus has been an opportunity for all mankind to make a resolution, the Kingdom of God has “already” been fulfilled, and because it will be fulfilled through the existential resolution of believers, it is “not yet.”²⁷ In this sense, the Kingdom of God is not God’s materialistic Reich that will come in temporal future hope, but it is the reign of God that is fulfilled in man’s existential resolution made in every moment.

Through existentialist eschatology, Bultmann fell into subjective eschatology by explaining the Kingdom of God as a present experience that Christians subjectively face in every moment of resolution. As shown in the evaluation of S. H. Travis, Bultmann, like Barth, failed to construct a holistic Christian eschatology by denying the Second Coming as a decisive event that will occur at the end of history.²⁸ Their subjective eschatology, in particular, lost the ultimate factors that Christian theology should hold to by removing the objectivity of the Kingdom of God and the historicity of eschatology. Bultmann deviated from the essence of Christian theology in the area of the essence of history and meaning, by emphasizing man’s existential resolution of faith according to the historical view of historicism,²⁹ and emphasizing the existential meaning of the Kingdom of God. In addition, by emphasizing only the personal and subjective experience and resolution of faith, he limited the social role and responsibility of Christianity, thereby reducing the meaning of Christian eschatology as Christian history and hope.

A Hopeful Understanding of Christian Eschatology – Pursuit of Syn-Thesis

Neo-orthodox theology and existentialist theology that appeared as an anti-thesis of liberal theology sought to break through the limits of liberal theology by replacing the meaning of eschatology and the Kingdom of God as the ultimate purpose of Christianity with a theology of transcendental subjectivity. However, the historical value of Christian eschatology could not be highlighted with this theology. Rather, they de-historicized and transcendentalized eschatology and brought about a crisis in Christian theology. The emergence of radical theology in the 1960s represents this crisis.³⁰ These phenomena were theological consequences of the political and social changes at the time, but internally they were also results of Christianity losing its religious identity as the agent of hope.³¹ In other words, it was the consequence of Christianity, as a religion of hope, losing its ultimate purpose by theologically internalizing (liberal theology) or transcendentalizing (neo-orthodox theology) the future eschatological hope for the Kingdom of God. There was a theological effort that recognized this problem and sought to present the hope of Christianity – the theology of hope.

The effort to sublimate Christian eschatology to a theology of hope was actualized by Jürgen Moltmann, but Wolfhart Pannenberg also attempted to re-understand the meaning of history in the same era. Pannenberg concluded that Christianity lost its role as a religion of hope because it failed to give a rational answer to the skeptical criticism of the twentieth century, and sought to reconstruct Christian theology by exploring knowledge of nature and philosophy. His “Revelation as History,” that is, the understanding of universal historical revelation, was birthed through this process.

He sought to explain through hermeneutical understanding which area of truth that the Christian faith presents can be most comprehensively understood. Pannenberg pointed out that Bultmann’s existential interpretation or the explanation of the New Hermeneutics school like G. Ebeling, cannot be an accurate interpretation for the situation at the time of the text,³² because the historical gap between the interpreters and the text that was passed down is too great. The true fusion of horizons that can overcome the difference between the two is only possible in comprehensive history, that is, universal history. The universal history Pannenberg is referring to is not a history based on a certain point in time in history, but history as a whole, that is, the universal history that connects the past and the present from the future. History is the most comprehensive horizon of the Christian faith, and Pannenberg claimed that Christian theology could be brought to a universal horizon when the truth of Christianity is presented according to this universal historical relevance.³³

Since the establishment of Enlightenment historical studies, history was simply accepted as a product of human activity formed in every age. Thus, truths of Christian theology were discussed at a historical level. This divided secular history and the history of salvation dichotomously within the Church, which consequently resulted in giving up the dynamism of Christian theology. Theology that abandoned historicity could no longer persuade the rational people who live in an age of reason, and eventually Christian theology could not help but to become a theology of hope. According to this criticism, Pannenberg saw that Christian theology must restore historicity in order to become a theology of hope, and suggested a universal historical theology that understands all history, including human action, as universal history, the revelation of God.

According to his universal history theology, history is extended universally to the future, not staying in the past and present, and therefore, universal history is the most comprehensive understanding of history. Also, because universal history is “a history open to the future,” the historical meaning of the past and the present can be decided from the completed future.³⁴ In this sense, the past and the present are both open to the future. Therefore, Christian theology cannot be called irrational, because although it is not completely revealed that history is the revelation of God and its authenticity cannot be evaluated in the present, it will eventually be fully revealed in the future. Pannenberg’s “Revelation as History” is that history can be understood as revelation because God’s revelation that is to be revealed in the future upon the horizon of history has already been revealed.

God shows revelation as history through “indirect self-revelation in the mirror of historical action,” and the ultimate event of revelation is the resurrection of Jesus.³⁵ Pannenberg explains that because the resurrection of the dead is a divine action that cannot appear in human experience, the resurrection of Jesus is a specific event that proves the revelation of God in history. The resurrection of Jesus cannot be explained in general historical studies, which understands history as simply a product of human action. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus becomes the basis for understanding history as the revelation of God from the perspective of universal history.

Pannenberg emphasized that in order to explain this fact, the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus must be proved and history must be understood as universal history.³⁶ He saw that the resurrection of Jesus, in particular, was the beginning and the proof of eschatological event, because it is an indirect self-revelation of God that will be revealed in the future. God’s revelation was fulfilled and the Kingdom of God was forecasted through this event. In the end, if the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact, the revelation of God that was established through this event as claimed by Christianity can be proved rationally, which proves that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of hope that will ultimately come. Based on this understanding, Pannenberg saw Christianity as a religion of hope.

It was Moltmann who more specifically presented Christian theology as a religion of hope. The beginning of Moltmann’s theology is that the Christian theology was originally a theology of hope.³⁷ In particular, this hope refers to Messianic hope, the eschatological hope as anticipation for the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is the original hope of the Christian faith, and therefore the ultimate purpose of the Christian faith. Moltmann concluded that Christianity fell into a historical dilemma when the future eschatological hope as this ultimate purpose didn’t come, and relying of German ideology (internalization of liberalism in the nineteenth century) and existentialist reason (transcendentalization of existentialist theology in the twentieth century), Christianity banished that ultimate hope.³⁸ Emphasizing that the reason Christian theology lost its influence in the twentieth century is in the loss of this Messianic hope, Moltmann stressed that Christianity must be regenerated as a religion of hope, and for this to occur, eschatology as a theology of hope must be newly understood.

Pursuing the dialectical synthesis of existentialist theology, which was an antithesis of liberal theology, Moltmann explained that there is Christian hope in the future eschatological anticipation they abandoned, and pulled futuristic eschatology, which modern theology sought to abandon in an attempt to solve the dilemma following the delay of the Second Coming, into the centre of hope once again. Inspired by the philosophical insights of Ernst Bloch’s Principal of Hope (Das Prinzip Hoffnung), Moltmann saw that the hope of mankind is in the ‘future’ that does not exist yet, and pursued a theology of hope from God who comes from that future. Moltmann understood Christian eschatology as “talking about Christ and his future,” where the future of Christ refers to the Second Coming of Christ.³⁹ “The Second Coming” for Moltmann was not the return of “the King of Kings who will establish his kingdom in this world sometime,” but “the present with us, the coming future.”⁴⁰ That is, the Second Coming is a historical event that is coming to the present from the future that has not been realized yet. The Second Coming is not the person who ascended into heaven returning someday in that form, but the future anticipated through the resurrection being revealed in detail in the horizon of promise and hope. Therefore, the event of the Second Coming is not the ultimate fulfillment of the already accomplished victory, but the event of hope that comes from the anticipated horizon of expectation to the category of newness.

Because God gave a clear promise of the Kingdom of God through the Exodus and the Resurrection, the Kingdom of God becomes a definite hope on the horizon of that promise and expectation.⁴¹ It is not that it hasn’t come yet, but it is already coming from the future on that horizon of promise and expectation. According to this understanding, Moltmann clearly understood that Kingdom of God that Jesus declared to be an objective kingdom to come eschatologically. He saw that because the kingdom of glory was surely promised through the cross and resurrection, the Kingdom of God would definitely be accomplished as a subject of hope and expectation through that promise.⁴² Moltmann regarded the Kingdom of God as an objective kingdom to come eschatologically, and stressed its futuristic eschatological meaning by seeing it as a comprehensive symbol of eschatological hope. Based on this understanding, he emphasized the hopeful understanding of Christian eschatology.

By stressing the futuristic characteristic of Christian eschatology in modern theology, Pannenberg and Moltmann re-highlighted the interest in the objective and historical accomplishment of eschatology that liberal theology (internalization) and existentialist theology (transcendence) abandoned.

They revealed the value of Christian eschatology by reminding that the core of eschatology in the futuristic events of the Second Coming of Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom of God. They also explained through eschatology, that Christianity is a religion of hope. Above all, they highlighted the importance of historical events in Christian eschatology. The ultimate purpose of Christian eschatology is in the events to be accomplished in the future, and that future is anticipated as a clear event because it was promised through past history. Thus, the future of Christ, that is, the Second Coming and the coming of the Kingdom of God becomes a historical hope.

However, in spite of these excellent eschatological reasons, it is difficult to say that their ideas have completed the syn-thesis of Christian eschatology. The theology of hope has a limit in positively leading the role and situation of Christianity in the twentieth century. In particular, because it is unable to solve Christianity’s theological dilemma caused by the delay of parousia, in a situation where the Second Coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God are still reserved in the time of the future, the theology of hope has eschatological limits. As long as the future is not actualized, it is inevitable to reserve evaluation whether the universal history, or transmitted history, they presented is an accurate view of history.

In the reality where the expectation for the Kingdom of God that was promised through the Exodus and the Resurrection has been deferred for over two thousand years, to say that the Kingdom of God becomes hope on the horizon of promise, as Moltmann claims, the cyclical debate of the eschatological dilemma that is yet to be resolved cannot be avoided. It is not enough to understand the Christian eschatology with hope, just by the possibilities they present. Therefore, as a historical-dialectical process of modern theology, the theology of hope can be accepted only as an anti-thesis of neo-orthodox theology, rather than as a syn-thesis of Christian eschatology. Is a syn-thesis of Christian eschatology in modern theology then impossible? Based on the historical understanding of Christian eschatology in modern theology that started from the nineteenth century, it is possible to propose a theological syn-thesis.

Historical Understanding of Christian Eschatology – Suggesting a Syn-Thesis

The theology of hope has theological value in that it views the Kingdom of God as a condition of hope and attempts to understand Christianity as a religion of hope. To pursue the future of Christianity from the subject of hope as suggested by the theology of hope, that is, the Kingdom of God, is a positive idea. However, if that Kingdom of God is confined to the future, it is difficult to solve the theological dilemma caused by its delay. In order for Christian eschatology to become a true theology of hope, it must be highlighted that the Kingdom of God is playing its role as the hope of mankind in history. Therefore, the Kingdom of God requires a historical understanding.

The central theme in the dialectical understanding of Christian eschatology in modern theology is ‘history,’ and dialectical theology has been developed with this history as the theme. Since the Reformation, the Kingdom of God has been understood historically in Protestant theology. Centered on the Kingdom of God, Christianity’s identity was a historical religious movement, and this historical Christianity has endeavored to fulfill its ultimate purpose in history. Liberal theology pursued the anti-thesis of this traditional thesis. Liberal theologians removed the historicity of the Kingdom of God from Christian theology by emphasizing that the Kingdom of God is not historically fulfilled at the end of human history, but actualized in human ethics in the present point in time. Under the influence of this liberal theology, eschatology in modern theology primarily consisted of anti-thesis that discarded the historicity of the Kingdom of God, such as Schweitzer’s consistent eschatology, Dodd’s realized eschatology, and Barth and Bultmann’s transcendent and existentialistic eschatology. Modern theologians’ removal of historicity from the Kingdom of God was the result of theological-philosophical search to solve the dilemma caused by the delay of the Second Coming. This anti-thesis ruled over the Christian thought from the nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century.

However, this anti-thesis approach consequently caused the abandonment of the historicity of eschatology. But despite the dilemma of the delay of two thousand years, Christian eschatology is a topic to solve based on historicity. Therefore, in twentieth century Christian thought, the dialectical syn-thesis of eschatology is possible through ‘historical understanding’ that constructs eschatology based on historicity. In this sense, Pannenberg’s theology of universal history and Moltmann’s theology of hope are cases of attempting this syn-thesis. However, their theologies were not able to construct an overall historicity in Christian eschatology. They attempted to explain the past and the present as expectation of promise and hope, from the historical meaning of the future. But they have a theological limit in explaining that the Kingdom of God is being experienced through hope in the present lives of Christians.

A theology that pursued the historical understanding of eschatology in the twentieth century modern theology, aside from the theology of hope, is the History of Salvation theology. This theology emerged before the theology of hope and led the historical understanding of the Kingdom of God and the future of Christianity through a historical perspective called the ‘History of Salvation.’ Represented by Oscar Cullmann, history of salvation theology emphasized the historical meaning of Christian eschatology by overcoming the temporal dilemma caused by the delay in the coming of the Kingdom of God through a dual structure of “already” and “not yet.”⁴³ The Kingdom of God was a real event already accomplished by the resurrection of the cross of Jesus Christ, and at the same time, a “historical event” that will come in the future according to the will of God. However, this theological explanation has two problems. First, it is a question of whether history can be understood only as the history of salvation. To accept history only as the history of salvation removes all other history, leaving the Kingdom of God to be fulfilled only in the area of history of salvation. Then, Christian eschatology becomes meaningless to people who do not accept the history of salvation. The second problem is the lack of historical interpretation to explain the delay of time that exists between the past and the future of the Kingdom of God. Over two thousand years have already passed from the cross and resurrection of Christ, where the Kingdom of God was finalized, to the Second Coming of Christ, which will complete the Kingdom of the God. History of salvation eschatology that overlooked this area of time, the actual life of Christians, is unable to complete the diachronic historical understanding of Christian eschatology in the end. Therefore, history of salvation theology can be regarded to have attempted a dialectical syn-thesis in stressing historicity in the Kingdom of God, but it is difficult to say that it completed the syn-thesis.

When analyzing Christian eschatology from a diachronic perspective, liberal theology and existentialist theology abandoned the futuristic historicity of the Kingdom of God through the internalization, transcendentalization or subjectivization of the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, the theology of hope and the history of salvation theology, which attempted the dialectical syn-thesis, stressed the historicity of the past and the future of the Kingdom of God respectively, but failed to solve the consequential dilemma of the present. In fact, dialectical syn-thesis in Christian eschatology in modern theology is showing its limits by not being able to completely establish the meaning of eschaton and the diachronic historical understanding of the Kingdom of God, that is, a comprehensive historical understanding of the past, present and the future.

How, then, can the historical understanding of Christian eschatology be constructed? Firstly, the Kingdom of God that will come historically must be presented the ultimate purpose and hope of Christian eschatology. Of course, for this to continue as a subject of hope in Christian history, it will have to overcome the dilemma of time that has been delayed for over two thousand years.

Therefore, it is necessary to establish the second condition, the meaning of the Kingdom of God in history. Paul Tillich pursues this by emphasizing that the Kingdom of God is not only the purpose of Christian eschatology but also the ultimate purpose of history. Of course, Tillich presents the Kingdom of God as the “symbol of eternal life,” which is different to the Kingdom of God as an objective history that Christian eschatology presents. Nevertheless, his concept of the “Kingdom of God that appeared in history” provides a very important insight to Christian eschatology. How can this “Kingdom of God that appeared in history” be understood? The Kingdom of God has already been revealed in history through Jesus Christ, the center of history, and its ultimate realization in the Second Coming is left as the goal of this history. In addition, the Kingdom of God must also have meaning in the present history where the lives of Christians are located. Tillich claims that this can be explained by the task of the Church to participate in the time of history as it heads towards the goal of history.⁴⁴

Here, the third factor for constructing a historical understanding of eschatology, that is, the practical search of Christian realism, is needed. Reingold Niebuhr’s Christian realism provides the meaning of the “Kingdom of God that appeared in history” which the twentieth century Christian eschatology overlooked, and it also provides an eschatological alternative to overcome the dilemma of present time that occurs between “already” and “not yet.” Christian realism emphasizes a progressive faith that prepares for the Kingdom of God that is to come in the future of Christ, by a Christian gospel movement through a realistic change of life.⁴⁵ The Kingdom of God begins with the First Coming of Christ and is completed through the Second Coming. Modern day Christians, who live in the age between the First Coming and the Second Coming, can wait for the Kingdom of God in hope by restoring the nature of mankind in present history to realize the ultimate meaning of history, and experiencing the practice of love through the realization of social justice. In other words, the hope of Christianity was promised by the resurrection of Christ in the past, is assured by the realistic transformation of Christians in the present, and will be completed by the Second Coming in the future. This is the historical meaning of the Kingdom of God that encompasses the past, the present and the future. As the Adventist theologian Fritz Guy stresses, the present experience is important in the hopes for the Second Coming,⁴⁶ and this experience is presented in Christian realism.

In Christian theology, the Church is the community of believers who have gathered under the reign of God between the Kingdom of God that has already started and the Kingdom of God that is yet to be completed,⁴⁷ and they are regarded as the tools of God that fulfill realistic and practical missions for the completion of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, in order for the Church to complete the Kingdom of God within history, it must fulfill the eschatological mission, and within this mission is the hope of Christianity. In other words, Christianity’s hope can be found in the practical activities and efforts of the Church faithful to the eschatological mission. This is why the comprehensive historical understanding of the past, present and future of the Kingdom of God is important in Christian eschatology. And in this historical process, the ultimate hope for Christian eschatology is in the Second Coming of Christ, since the completion of the Kingdom of God, which is the ultimate purpose and hope, is fulfilled by the future of Christ, that is, the Second Coming.⁴⁸

The past, present and futuristic understanding of the Kingdom of God is based on Christian historical understanding. The progressive historical perspective of liberal theology, existentialist theology’s historical perspective based on historicism, or the universal historical perspective of the theology of hope, and the history of salvation theology’s historical perspective each have a specific position in understanding history. Based on this understanding of historical perspectives, it is possible to see a more comprehensive nature of Christian historical perspective. In other words, because Christian historical perspective is not limited to the history of salvation or universal history, but constructs history by finding signs and meanings of God’s providence and intervention also in general history, it emphasized a comprehensive understanding of history. H. Butterfield stressed that Christianity can be understood as a historical religion by explaining the progress of history and the possibility of God’s providence by exploring the internal aspects of history.⁴⁹ According to this historical understanding, it is possible to understand, from a historical perspective, the Second Coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God as the ultimate purpose of history that Christianity proposes. For Christianity, history has been progressed under God’s providence from creation to redemption, and is still progressing towards the end of that history. Therefore, our history will end when the ultimate purpose of the coming of the Kingdom of God is completed, and then it will enter a progress of history that is completely new qualitatively. Based on this historical philosophy, Christianity must carry out a consistent role in modern society, as a religion of hope with this ultimate purpose, because the future of Christianity is still in the Kingdom of God that will come with the Second Coming of Christ. There is no change to the essence of this hope, because the dilemma of the delay of the Second Coming that Christianity has experienced for two thousand years is not a matter of fulfillment of that ultimate goal of history, but a matter of the Christian’s completion of practical missions for this fulfillment. Based on this eschatological historical understanding, Christianity can still be accepted as a theology of hope.

Conclusion

This study started with the question – Does Christianity, which has the ultimate purpose of the coming of the “Kingdom of God,” still have a religious influence today, and is it constructing eschatology as a theology of hope? Upon historical-dialectically analysing the understanding of the Kingdom of God and Christian eschatology displayed in history of modern Christian thought, the study proceeded coupled with the theological intention to observe the meaning of Christian hope. The results of the analysis of modern theology’s eschatology under this purpose are as follows.

Firstly, eschatology in modern theology is being developed historical-dialectically. In modern theology, where eschatology is recognized as the center of theology, eschatological understanding emerged in the form of anti-proposition of the previous era’s eschatology. The optimistic eschatology of liberal theology caused Christian theology to deny eschatology, and as an anti-thesis to this, the neo-orthodox eschatology emerged. However, this eschatology also subjectivated and de-historicized eschatology, resulting in the loss of eschatological hope. Thus, the theology of hope emerged as its dialectical syn-thesis, but the theology of hope also has definite limits to be accepted as a dialectical syn-thesis.

Secondly, it was analysed that modern theology’s eschatological understanding, the understanding of the Kingdom of God in particular, was constructed based on the historical-philosophical understanding of history. Liberal theology had an optimistic understanding of eschatology based on a progressive historical perspective, and existentialist theology regarded eschatology subjectively based on a historical perspective of historicism. On the other hand, the theology of hope sought to present the Kingdom of God and the future of Christianity as hopeful based on the universal history and transmitted history, and the history of salvation theology expanded the dual understanding of the Kingdom of God according to the historical perspective that emphasized the history of salvation. However, to understand Christian eschatology diachronically, a comprehensive perspective of history is needed to understand a more comprehensive historical perspective, that is, to discover the providence of God in general history. As a historical religion, Christianity accepts the Second Coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God in a diachronic framework.

Thirdly, it was found that the modern theology’s understanding of historical philosophy and eschatology show partial points of emphasis of Christian eschatology. Only parts of the spectrum of Christian eschatology were highlighted such as the optimistic eschatological understanding of liberal theologians, Marth and Bultmann’s eschatological understanding as the present resolution of faith, and Moltmann’s coming future of God. The correct Christian eschatology can only be completed when all of these concepts are synthesized. A comprehensive understanding of Christian eschatology can be constructed when the past, the present and the future are grasped historically. Among these historical factors, modern theology overlooked the present state of the Christian’s life. Christians experience the forgiveness and grace of God in reality through the resolution of faith, and establish the hope for the Kingdom of God through personal transformation. In addition, by completing the entrusted mission for the coming of the Kingdom of God in the present life, they advance the Kingdom of God. In this aspect, the delay of parousia is a condition of hope that actualizes the role and mission of Christians before it is a dilemma of Christian eschatology. The Church, as a community of hope that leads the present, is a subject of future hope that accomplished this mission. Therefore, Christian eschatology is not only in the past event anticipated through the cross of Christ and the future that will be completed through his Second Coming, but also in the present lives of Christians as a condition for accomplishing that hope.

The essence of the historical understanding of Christian eschatology as proposed by this study is that the Kingdom of God was prepared through the cross and resurrection of Christ in the past, is experienced in the lives of Christians in the present, and will be completed with the Second Coming of Christ in the future. Therefore, Christian eschatology in modern theology must be reconstructed with this historical understanding. According to this historical understanding, it is possible to recognise that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the Christians’ present experience of preparation and change for this Second Coming are very important. The Second Coming of Christ, which is the ultimate completion of the Kingdom of God, is Christianity’s ultimate hope, so the Second Coming ideology must be the ultimate purpose of Christian history.

Christianity is a religion of hope that emphasizes the coming of the Kingdom of God as the ultimate purpose of history, and Christians are the community of hope to fulfill this goal. Because this goal is an eschatological goal, Christians are also an eschatological community. Because the essence of Christianity is experiencing eschatological hope through experiencing the resolution of faith and salvation in the present, based on Christ’s eschatological event accomplished in the past, and fulfilling the hope for that future, Christians are always living in eschaton. And in the midst of this eschatological understanding, Christianity is always a religion of hope. The historical understanding of Christian eschatology can be presented as a theological syn-thesis that can solve the Christianity’s dilemma that modern theology sought to solve.

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